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Frontier Developments now offers The Guardians, a new expansion for
Elite Dangerous Horizons introducing ship-launched fighters and passenger
gameplay to their space combat game. This comes with a version 2.2 patch for
Elite Dangerous Horizons and a version 1.7 update for Elite Dangerous, saying
these provide quality-of-life upgrades. The
Elite Dangerous forums have a complete change log and a
new trailer shows
things off. Here's word:

The Guardians changes the dynamics of combat,
trading and exploration in Elite Dangerous, and unlocks new opportunities for
every Commander to enrich their experience in the massively multiplayer galaxy,
however they choose to play.

The Guardians offers Commanders the opportunity to install a fighter launch bay
in their larger ships and choose from three different fighter craft to gain an
edge over their attackers. Commanders can hire NPC (non-player character)
crewmates to pilot their ship while flying into combat from the cockpit of their
heavily-armed fighter. With a second ship in every fight, now Commanders can
take what comes and hit back with double.

Passenger gameplay sees the introduction of individuals and groups of NPCs
seeking passage aboard Commanders’ ships, unlocking an all-new career path for
the Elite Dangerous galaxy. Commanders can pilot the new Beluga passenger vessel
or retrofit their existing craft to transport politicians, VIPs and prisoners
across the galaxy for legal and illegal ends. Spectacular destinations await
galactic tourists and dangerous challenges await undercover operatives on
smuggler’s runs.

Haha! Sadly, I ended up working OT and just watching Luke Cage with the wife, while E:D installed. I'll play tonight for sure. That's cool to hear there are more HMD settings now, can't wait to try it out.

"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." Isaac Asimov

Bundy wrote on Oct 26, 2016, 10:11:I picked up an Oculus last week and just tried this last night. Not sure I can ever play it on a standard monitor again. It's pretty awesome.

Welcome to awesome land, sir. Great to have you.

An aside to the VIVE users. This new update + SteamVRs version of asynchronous timewarp (which you can get by opting into the beta of SteamVR) offers a significant perceived increase in performance for ED. Still not as good as the Rift, but MUCH MUCH improved.

There's a HMD Quality setting now in ED. Switch that baby to 1.25 and off you go. night and day difference, and this is with a gtx 970. Sure it runs at 45fps and in reprojection mode (only so much a 970 can do), but it feels smoother and the visual fidelity is vastly better. Feels like I got a new video card for ED. pretty awesome stuff.

Well, now that I'm getting up there in age, maybe riding on a passenger ship is more my speed.

"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." Isaac Asimov

The AI is vicious now. I pretty much gave up bounty hunting, unless it's one guy in a smaller ship than I. Sometimes I still flee because a wing will warp in to help.

I've found doing the engineer quests to be more fun. You can go to Unidentified Sig Sources and it shows a threat level when you get close. Threat 0 is just picking up jettisoned cargo which you can use for materials. Threat 1 is usually just one small pirate guy. Killing him also gives you materials. Any higher threats and I avoid.